Artist	Song
Neil Young & Crazy Horse [Ragged Glory, 1990]	Mother Earth (Natural Anthem) (5:14)
Neil Young [Freedom, 1989]	Crime In The City (8:47)
Neil Young & Crazy Horse [Sleeps With Angels, 1994]	Safeway Cart (6:35)
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young [CSN Box Set Disc 2, original single released 1970]	Ohio (3:09)
Neil Young [On The Beach, 1974]	Revolution Blues (4:06)
Neil Young & Crazy Horse [Greendale, 2003]	Sun Green (12:06)
Neil Young [After the Gold Rush, 1970]	Southern Man (5:35)
Emmylou Harris [Wrecking Ball, 1995]	Sweet Old World (5:08)
Neil Young [Trans, 1982]	Computer Age (5:27)
Neil Young with Pearl Jam [Mirrorball, 1995]	Throw Your Hatred Down (5:48)
Neil Young [Harvest Moon, 1992]	Natural Beauty (10:26)
Neil Young & Crazy Horse [Life, 1988]	Around The World (5:28)

Comment:

Neil Young's an enigma. searching for a representative album, i'd be willing to bet that any ambitious Shakey trekker would be lost in the wilderness before long. i've put together four mix CDs of the guy myself, and this is the most cohesive simply by focusing on a tiny part of Neil's music: his political songs. now, what Neil thinks of as a political song probably isn't the same thing as what you or i think of; like all his songwriting tends to be, they're more impressionistic than not, more local and personal than nationalistic. i've jettisoned probably his best known political song, "Rockin' In The Free World", in favor of Freedom-album-mate "Crime In The City", which (after the live distorto-eco-head introduction of "Water Is Wide"-rewrite "Mother Earth") really sets a pretty good approximation to the precise pace for the mood of the mix. Political decisions themselves are never mentioned; only their effects on the strugglers and stragglers spiked through the social strata. 1989 and the Freedom album brought Young's first strong, album-wide statement of this peculiar consciousness of his; most of the tracks here, including the downright eerie, almost subjectless but nevertheless unmistakably foreboding "Safeway Cart" (one of Young's strangest-sounding tracks ever), seem to germinate conceptually at this point in his career. The two tracks that follow on the mix, however, represent Neil's earlier takes on politics: his most explicit song ever, "Ohio", which he was challenged to write by David Crosby in reaction to the Kent State killings, and "Revolution Blues", which was based on Young's acquaintanceship with Charles Manson and accompanied by Levon Helm and Rick Danko of the Band (and which terrified Crosby so much he refused to perform it with Young on tour)! The most recent track, "Sun Green", follows, and it's a long story-song that's part of a longer story-album; the characters, especially the title 18-year-old "young girl" rebel political activist (really far too close for comfort to Whatsername in Green Day's American Idiot!) are what drive this song; it fits in thematically with the 70's songs that surround it, including the devil-may-care "Southern Man", more than the more evocative songs at the start of the CD. "Sweet Old World" is a sudden detour: written by Lucinda Williams, and sung by Emmylou Harris with Neil on prominent backing vocals and harmonica, it's got the soft-focus of a genuine Young song, managing to fit in by invoking one human's worldly pleasures lost at the moment of death. "Computer Age" is another oddball -- we're really lost in the hinterlands here -- promising a mechanized utopia for humans delivered through the vocoder ubiquitous on Trans, and then -- to conclude, we have three Freedom-period pieces: 1995's "Throw Your Hatred Down" with the Eddie Vedder-less Pearl Jam that rocks hard enough to make the last few songs seem like a trip through the garden path; 1992's extended, countryish eco-lament "Natural Beauty" that's clearly akin to the grunge number that opened this collection; and finally, "Around The World" from 1988, the very beginning of Young's fledgling worldwide worldview and spiritually united to "Sweet Old World", even as it's committed to ending the Earth's (here-represented) music with a bang. Not a political song perhaps, in the strict sense; but Down To Earth as anything. Neil's love suite to the planet, perhaps.

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